tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3201110496877153792.post8194742181789692945..comments2023-10-17T07:56:03.291-07:00Comments on WhooshUp: Discussion: Smerdyakov in The Brothers KaramazovKarl Tysonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14966874640497047835noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3201110496877153792.post-213036920300755222008-05-07T13:39:00.000-07:002008-05-07T13:39:00.000-07:00A reader emailed the following criticism of this S...A reader emailed the following criticism of this Smerdyakov story: "I'm not convinced. To begin with, I think he has no sensual side at all. What makes you think that the woman who is taking care of him is his girl friend?"<BR/><BR/>The criticism, it seems to me, is aimed at my proposition that Smerdyakov should be analyzable under the same umbrella as the other three brothers, and in particular my lazy and self-serving definition of "soul" as a sort of narratively revealed inner humanity. To Dreyfus, and Kierkegaard, this subject indicates nothing other than the "Self", a specific configuration of bodily and spiritual aspects. By questioning my claim (in 4. Smerdyakov does have a soul...) that he was in an "ordinary" relationship with this neighbor woman, the critic directs our attention to Smerdyakov's lack of sexual passion or intensity, either open or repressed, a defining characteristic of all the other Karamazovs, even, in an undeveloped form, of "saintly" Alyosha. If Smerdyakov has no sensual impulses to relate to his spiritual impulses (which may also be, arguably, lacking), he presumably loses the binding Kierkegaardian significance of the Karamazovs in the present Dreyfus-directed analysis of the novel.<BR/><BR/>As with all good criticisms (please add your own!), the challenge that Smerdyakov does not structurally fulfill the role of a Dostoevskian exemplar of Kierkegaard's concept of Self, really made me think hard about it, and go back to the text and the lectures. There is no doubt, and I have to admit, that the author goes to lengths to portray Smerdyakov as far less sexually charged than the rest of the male cast members, as evidenced not only in his "fastidious" primping and generally aloof manner ("he seemed to despise the female sex as much as the male"), but he is several times described as looking like a eunuch.<BR/><BR/>But there is also evidence going the other direction. A close reading of the short chapter "Smerdyakov with a Guitar" (Chapter 2, Book 5), where Alyosha accidentally stumbles across Smerdyakov sitting in the neighbor's garden with his presumed girlfriend Maria Kondratievna, would verify that however passively and unemotionally, our cook is, in fact, courting her. He strums a guitar and sings a love song in his "lackey tenor" and haughtily expatiates on his favorite theory, the superiority of foreign culture over Russian. For her part, she coos in a "caressing" voice - clearly wanting much more romantically charged attention than she's getting. All this implies that Smerdyakov has at least some wee bit of sex appeal, at least to impoverished, unsophisticated Maria, and that it amuses him, for whatever reason, to encourage that feeling with song and banter.<BR/><BR/>After the murder, Smerdyakov goes to the hospital for recovery (where Ivan visits him the first time) and then to stay as a semi-invalid at "a tiny, lopsided log house, the present lodgings of Maria Kondratievna, formerly Fyodor Pavlovich's neighbor, ... to whom Smerdyakov, in those days, used to sing his songs and play on the guitar. ... [T]he sick, nearly dying Smerdyakov had been living with them ever since Fyodor Pavlovich's death." (end of Chapter 5, Book 11) There Ivan visits a second and third time, and the narrator observes "God knows on what terms he lived with them: was he paying, or did he live there free? Later it was supposed that he had moved in with them as Maria Kondratievna's fiance and meanwhile lived with both of them free. Both mother and daughter respected him greatly and looked upon him as a superior person compared to themselves." (start of Chapter 7, Book 11). Even with this obvious ambiguity concerning sleeping arrangements, typical of the narrator, the scene is set as something that would ordinarily take place among ordinary folks, underlain by the premise of a marriageable couple. <BR/><BR/>What Dostoevsky seems to give us in Smerdyakov is a weakened, attenuated, servile version of Ivan's configuration of the Self, wherein the bodily desires are not so much repressed and sanitized, as diluted from the start, even castrated (as of eunuchs). Perhaps Smerdyakov desires Maria for some other reason than lust. Perhaps she represents normality and comfort for his pursuit of "higher" culture. But in this setting it all comes as a package.<BR/><BR/>That the above is enough to give Smerdyakov a stunted, weak aspect of bodily desire - what I call "ordinary" desire for a wife and family, as opposed to the "extraordinary" desire we find in both Dmitri and his father Fyodor for the voluptuous Grushenka, or repressed and desperate in Ivan for Katya or Lisa, I think is arguably established. The further claim that Smerdyakov also possesses a mental or spiritual side to contend with his tepid corporeal side is even more defensible. His childhood mock masses over cats, his intellectual pretensions, his feisty defense of his atheism -- to Grigory, that God illogically created light before the heavenly bodies, to Fyodor and the brothers, that God must logically be forced to forgive every sinner or condemn all but "two hermits in Egypt" whose faith actually would move a mountain (Chapter 6, Book 3) -- and finally his apparent reading of "The Homilies of Our Father among the Saints, Isaac the Syrian" in his last, cornered, suicidal day (Chapter 8, Book 11), all underline this well defined, but incongruous, spiritual aspect of his fictional constitution.<BR/><BR/>To correlate these materials as closely as we can with the Kierkegaardian framework laid out by Dreyfus, we may need to imagine a dual persona - one essential thrust into a rational denial of the existential compromise in two coordinated lives - Ivan's and Smerdyakov's. In this reading, Smerdyakov becomes Ivan's lackey doppleganger. Just as Katya is Ivan's female double, perhaps Smerdyakov is his lower class double. He is the lower class intellectual where Ivan is the upper class intellectual. He is more practically dangerous - Ivan is more theoretically dangerous. These two may be what one would arrive at if the character Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment got split like a gemstone along some hidden fracture separating the intellect to justify, from the brutality to commit, such a "crime of reason" as the two murders central to the two novels.<BR/><BR/>At this point I will pause, since the critic addressed only this point concerning the basis of a "Self" exemplar for the Smerdyakov character.Karl Tysonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14966874640497047835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3201110496877153792.post-41413826603477657262008-04-20T12:55:00.000-07:002008-04-20T12:55:00.000-07:00Karl,Was Aloysha ready to help Smerdyakov? Throug...Karl,<BR/><BR/>Was Aloysha ready to help Smerdyakov? Throughout the first half of the book he is a novice whose central aim seems to be devotion to Zossima. During this time Aloysha seems to have a beneficial influence on most of the people he encounters but this does not seem to be his aim. It also does not work on everyone. Ivan and Grushenka are not effected in this way for reasons that are at least partly the fault of Aloysha himself.<BR/><BR/>Isn't it only after the death of Zossima and Aloysha's "trial" that his true "aim" becomes clear. It is only after that night at Grushenka's that he is now ready to leave the monastery and go into the world as his Elder charged him.<BR/><BR/>Does Aloysha come into contact with Smerdyakov after that night he visited Grushenka with Ratekin? I read the book a year ago so I am not sure. But quickly flipping through the pages I can't find that he did.<BR/><BR/>If not, could it be said that Aloysha could not save Smerdyakov because his time had not come yet?<BR/>But even if this is the case, I seem to remember that Aloysha showed very little sympathy for his "fallen" brother Smerdyakov after the murder.<BR/><BR/>This question regarding Aloysha seems central and has led me to start reading the book again. I look forward to seeing how this thread develops.<BR/><BR/>BradBHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09912004240648685828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3201110496877153792.post-83419549496550828042008-04-18T06:40:00.000-07:002008-04-18T06:40:00.000-07:00Brad - you are right to look at Smerdyakov's child...Brad - you are right to look at Smerdyakov's childhood for more clues. Dreyfus has emphasized two things that seem pertinant for us: look at childhood memories to affect adult behavior, and that he (Dostoevsky) will always hit you over the head with significant allusions.<BR/><BR/>Clearly, Smerdyakov has the deck stacked against him, and he did nothing to deserve it. He is an innocent until twisted by childhood misfortune handed off to him by the sometimes unintended quirks of others.<BR/><BR/>One theme I wonder about is this - is Dostoevsky saying that an Alyosha can only reach a Smerdyakov type as a youth (as in Ilyusha for example)? But then, why is he so capable to help adults (Dmitri and Grushenka)?<BR/><BR/>My point is that the Alyosha figure must "aim" to help the sorriest sinner Smerdyakov, and disaster follows when that cannot happen. The real question then becomes one about Alyosha - what are his limits? Will he always let the most important sinner slip past him to murder and suicide?Karl Tysonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14966874640497047835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3201110496877153792.post-64193495937323109582008-04-18T05:15:00.000-07:002008-04-18T05:15:00.000-07:00Karl,You gave us a lot to think about.It sure seem...Karl,<BR/><BR/>You gave us a lot to think about.<BR/><BR/>It sure seems as though Dostoevsky stacks the deck against Smerdyakov from the very beginning. Beyond the reprehensible crime that led to his conception, I think that Smerdyakov's relation to Grigory is also a telling feature.<BR/><BR/>We are told how Grigory cared for Dmitri, Ivan and Aloysha when they were abandoned by their father. From the text it looks like his actions regarding these three is nothing but praiseworthy. Dostoevsky also notes that he seemed to have affection for children which might explain his actions springing from a certain warmth of his heart. <BR/><BR/>He takes Smerdyakov in as he had done with the others (there actually must have been a time when Ivan, Aloysha and Smerdyakov were all in his care though this is never mentioned) there seems to be critical differences that effects his relationship to Smerdyakov.<BR/><BR/>One seems to be the way he viewed the mother of the boys. Grigory, despite his station, trys to defend the abused mother of Ivan and Aloysha. But with Smerdykov's mother, the situation is entirely reversed. He defends Fyoder (one has to assume that Grigory is fully aware of his debauched character) against the poor, innocent victim of the crime.<BR/><BR/>The other was the circumstances of his rejection of his own child and the grief at that child's death. This experience seems to have thrown him into a brooding mysticism. When Smerdyakov is found, Grigory declares it is the union between "the devil's son" and the "the innocent one" (which seems to declare that Grigory knew who was at fault in this affair all along). This seems like reversal of the conception story of Jesus.<BR/><BR/>With Smerdyakov, we hear no more about Grigory's affection for children and get no more information regarding how he looked after his ward (with the exception that he made efforts to educate him). Smerdyakov seems to bear the brunt of Grigory's peasant superstitions that have now been intensified through his reaction to the birth and death of his own son. Seeing Smerdyakov as the offspring of an unholy union, he can quickly accept that boy is not human. He sees the killing of the cats but does not see the rites the child performs over them. As he called his own deformed child "a dragon" he now calls Smerdyakov "accursed". <BR/><BR/>Also, Dmitri, Ivan and Aloysha are allowed to escape the environment of the Karamazo household at a young age. Smerdyakov is not so lucky. He is trapped. In this way, the three legitimate Karamzov's get a break. Dostoyevsky is not going to let Smerdyakov off that easily. <BR/><BR/>BradBHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09912004240648685828noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3201110496877153792.post-7121249605683628342008-04-17T22:45:00.000-07:002008-04-17T22:45:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.BHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09912004240648685828noreply@blogger.com